A Wake-up call to the Police Administration
Police-force of West Bengal has repeatedly demonstrated professional inefficiency. They haven’t lived up to the expectation whenever required. They haven’t been able to do their job when goons of the ruling party have often heckled the policemen. Such hooligans under the protection of TMC have been reported to attack even police stations. A few months back, a media shot went viral where a policeman was seen to hide under the table, protecting himself with a mere paper file. Don’t these incidences prove that our policemen are either not empowered & equipped to protect themselves or they have to comply with the instruction of their Minister to admit such hooliganism under the banner of TMC? In either case, do people of West Bengal have any reason to have faith in its police force? Can the police force, which can’t protect themselves, protect common men? Can’t this situation be described as administrative failure of the Home Ministry led by the Chief Minister of West Bengal? And if a State doesn’t keep its policemen empowered, well-trained & efficient, would it be wrong to say that the State doesn’t have a normal Law n’ Order status?
Breaking of rows is a common phenomenon in districts, villages & different parts of West Bengal. In almost every incident, the police force either remains inactive or become oppressive on the relatively weaker section of the people involved in the row, leading to a general lack of faith & reverence about the police force. This type of image of the police force is a shame for the State and for all of us as the people of the State.
Shameful incidents like rape & violence on women have observed a monotonous increase in the TMC regime in West Bengal. As an example, even a 70 years old Nun of a Christian Missionary School at Ranaghat, Nadia district, was not exempted by the rapists’ gang. They raped her as she didn’t want to comply with their illegitimate demand for money from the School. What an unbearable shame for ALL of us! Our Chief Minister who is also the Home Minister is unable to control situations in general; instead, she prefers to declare compensation for the family of the rape victim. The respectable Minister has tried to pay the price of all the misdeeds of her party-men, be it a rape, a gang-rape, a murder, hooliganism or anything at the cost of the money of Government-treasury i.e.public-money. The oppressed people also had no other way but to accept the compensation due to definite practical reasons, I guess. Common men are too weak to withstand threats of the Government supported hooligans. So in our state now, every abstract human possession are perceived to be purchasable, be it human-life, prestige, respect to women or anything of that sort! Is this anything less than a hell? The police are just titular! They have to be just the yes-men to the Home Minister! If they approach to say & do anything otherwise, they are removed to a relatively defunct job-posting, as happened to Ms. Damayanti Sen, IPS, after she truthfully investigated the infamous rape-case of Park Street and declared that the girl was ill-treated & raped by some rich anti-socials as against the statement of the Chief cum Home Minister that it was a mere ‘made-up incident’!
In incidences when any type of resistance has been shown from people of opposition parties against TMC-goons, the local police force has invariably acted favourably for the TMC-men. Is it quite rational & logical to believe that the opposition-men were always illegitimate as against the ruling-party men? However, police have almost never stood up for justice, instead, they filed false cases against opposition men as a matter of strategy to suppress opposition-activity. Can this be called a healthy democracy where oppositions are not allowed to act upon their own political agenda? Policemen have turned, from public-servants to TMC-servants! What a shame!
The other severe problem to the State-conditions of West Bengal is terror-infiltration across the international border between West Bengal & Bangladesh, as officially reported by Bangladesh. We are very alarmed and concerned to know what steps have been taken by the Police and the Government of West Bengal, otherwise, Bengal-border is acting like the big open gate of terrorist infiltration into the land of India making the whole country vulnerable! We as residents of West Bengal can’t take the burden of being responsible for unwanted terror activities in our dear country.
There are several reasons why common men in common places are often expressing their disgust about policemen these days. The police force of Bengal always had an image of being corrupt even earlier. But at the same time, they had an image of strength too. In the TMC regime, the police force has lost its image of strength. No one is afraid of the police these days in West Bengal as they believe police to be completely unable & ineffective to tackle any situation of unrest. And this is why, people of the State are living with a persistent sense of insecurity too, as they don’t expect any help from the police force in case they fall in some trouble! The inherent & imparted weakness of the police force of the State is leading to a dangerous & fearful law n’ order status of West Bengal in the near future!
We, as a responsible opposition party of the State, feel it be necessary to appeal to the police administration to wake up from hibernation & take control of the lawful government of the State as stated in our Constitution. We request the police force to do their duties. With all these agenda, we have decided to march ahead towards Lalbajar, the Head Quarter of Kolkata Police, with a rally of people on 25th May, Thursday, 2017.